The Black Cauldron

by William Heinesen

  He winked roguishly at Magdalena. “Well, I’d better be getting along, Magdalena, for the snow’s melting on my clothes, and I’ll soon be drenched to the skin.”

  The watchmaker wrapped himself up again and disappeared with a satisfied little grunt into the tempestuous night.

  6

  Thick snow falling over black waters. As white as chalk, as black as coal. The little motorboat the Kittiwake slipped quietly out through the long fjord; this was no place for open exhausts – the engine emitted no more than a quiet chuff-chuff. The skipper, Kristian the Beachman, smiled as he quietly announced that he’d had extra silencers fitted. This had been done so as not to attract more U-boats than absolutely necessary. And with this poor visibility they ought to be pretty safe. And in any case, not a sparrow falls to the ground except …

  Jens Ferdinand was quietly surprised to hear these words. The man belonged to the bun sect and was longing for the end of the world with all his heart. But such is the human mind.

  Kristian’s white-haired son Napoleon was at the wheel, a lad strangely like an overgrown garden, with eyelashes so long and fair that they imparted to his eyes something of the quality of half-open marguerites. He seemed to be what is known as an albino; his face shone flour-white under the black sou’wester.

  As white as chalk, as black as coal.

  Jens Ferdinand was suffering from an intolerable thirst. But there was a remedy for that: Kristian the Beachman drew a generous draught of water from a newly-filled barrel. The fresh, ice-cold water was bliss itself to Jens Ferdinand’s mouth and throat. But as soon as his thirst had been quenched he was overcome by a dislike of fresh water which was just as irksome. His stomach felt as though it was full of half-dead fish squelching around sleepily and weakly flapping their gills. He disappeared behind the poop for a moment to take a swig from his hip flask. It held no more than could be contained in a soda water bottle, alack and alas. So he would have to go easy on the life-giving golden drops.

  Meanwhile, the little snaps had its effect, and gave a good, long-term perspective to everything. Here he was, on board a lousy little boat coughing and spluttering across the enormous floor of the Atlantic Ocean. Almost like a Sahara Desert ground beetle. And as the sole passenger on board, there he was as though fixed outside time, at least for a moment. He was a scarab, a creature insignificant but sacred, unheeded but racked by the divine world thirst, that sacred urge to belong in the totality of creation, to feel himself as part of the convoy making up the solar system, a participant in the breathtaking and probably crazy expedition to the constellation of Hercules. A curiously battered convoy, too, most of it doomed to destruction … from a completely carbonised Mercury to a Pluto entirely covered in ice. And as to whether there was any life left amidst the impenetrable cover of smoke on the SS Venus, that was a matter for conjecture. On Mars they were all dead from cold and scurvy, and those great ships Jupiter, Saturn and Uranus were without a crew, deserted and left to drift aimlessly with their cargoes of acid and poison gas. While on Earth a bloody mutiny was raging … but enough of that. What a charming collection.

  A bit of a breeze was getting up, and it was turning cold. Jens Ferdinand found himself a place at the top of the stairs leading down to the cabin; there he could stand comfortably in the shelter of the poop. But at the same time he was appalled to feel the octopus tendrils of melancholy creeping vengefully around him and taking hold of him with their suckers. It started as an ordinary heartfelt sigh: If only I were sober and could think clearly. Then came another sigh from a greater distance, as though from one of the oldest and deepest cellars of his soul: If only I were normal and well built, with the authority of a grown man, the imperturbable authority of a man alive to his own responsibility. In short, if only I were like Johan used to be.

  And then came a mighty wave of self-reproach: Why were you never fond of Johan, your only brother? Why were you not numbed by the news of his death? And when sickness sank its scorpion claw into him – why did you not sorrow on his behalf?

  Not that you were pleased about it, Heaven forbid. You are not exactly a monster, when all is said and done. But sorrow and pain … ? Be honest: never. But on the other hand, was there not perhaps after all a certain … Schadenfreude? Good heavens above, what are you getting at? No, I wasn’t insinuating anything, but search your heart, sir – wasn’t there something in that suggestion? Didn’t you envy him his health, his stature, his superiority, and – yes, first and foremost his fiancée Liva? The natural ease with which he appropriated her without further ado, right in front of your eyes … didn’t it both infuriate and mortally upset you?

  Yes indeed! shouts a rasping voice from the edge of the audience.

  The tiny demons of retribution were surely already at work. The bigger ones would follow. An oppressive smell was rising from the cabin, making him want to vomit – he didn’t otherwise usually suffer from seasickness. He quickly grabbed his bottle and took a hefty swig. And then another.

  No, he went on, more and more buoyed up by righteous indignation: Never ever have I felt envy or jealousy towards Johan. You’re playing far too easy a hand, my fine friend. Surely it’s obvious that the crippled brother would be bitter towards the one who was well shaped … a cheap film motif of course. And what about the brother’s pretty fiancée? But this is no cheap film with an expected happy ending, my dear sir. For my own part I have never felt that I’ve had less than my share. What my brother had in looks, I compensated for in intellect. I had the ability to see perspectives, to comprehend, to understand. Not that understanding leads to happiness and certainty, on the contrary, it is more inclined to lead to endless worry.

  Jens Ferdinand had a feeling that these last thoughts were straying from the point and ought really to have been left unsaid. They revealed a weakness in his general argument. The shouts from the demons on the back rows of the auditorium became more offensive: You were born with the gift of philosophical composure, mock Archimedes that you are. That’s why you went blubbering in the middle of the street yesterday even while you were perfectly sober. “Liva! I love you!” you howled like a mangy dog.

  The sound of heavy coughing suddenly emerged from the cabin, followed by the champing of someone in troubled sleep. What the devil … were there other passengers on board, then? Jens Ferdinand clambered down the staircase. Yes. Stretched out on a bench, lying with one hand under his neck and the other hanging limply down, someone lay fast asleep. He looked remarkably like … indeed, it really was none other than Simon the baker!

  Jens Ferdinand returned to the deck. He plunged his clenched hands deep in his pockets.

  Well, why not? Why not?

  Calm down. First of all admit your own faults. Acknowledge your own motives.

  He emptied his bottle and perceived relief momentarily burgeoning in his tired mind, but the tender shoot froze and withered, and misery returned with all the inevitability of a chemical process. It was no longer snowing. The retreating shower hung wide and leaden grey like a mountain landscape in the west. Another shower was gathering in the east. A desolate island loomed into view in the midst of the ocean, everywhere dusted in white except by the water’s edge, where the sea’s warm breath had washed it black.

  As white as chalk, as black as coal.

  Jens Ferdinand found Kristian the Beachman. “You don’t happen to have a medicine chest or something on board?” he asked.

  “Seasick?” said the skipper with a smile, and Jens Ferdinand nodded with hope in his eyes.

  “No, I’m afraid we haven’t got any medicine on board. But you could have a drop of coffee.” Kristian raised his bushy eyebrows questioningly.

  “No, thanks.”

  No, there was nothing for it but to endure to the bitter end. Jens Ferdinand flapped his wings and opened his mind to bitter thought: Come on then, you devils. Yes, I know, I’m a heartless, self-centred cripple. A cynical egoist. This trip, this mission to the dead, these obsequies … all right: I had thoug
ht of it all as a kind of – platonic – courtship. But in fact I’m a ridiculous figure lusting like a love-sick tomcat for my brother’s grieving widow, and I’m livid because I’ve got a rival on the journey.

  Fine. Is there anything else you want to know? For instance, what I’m going to do now that I’ve been unmasked? OK, I’m going to drink. Get it? I’m going to get hold of a bottle and quite simply drink myself silly and get to where the scarab lives. I’m no good among living beings in any case.

  He leant out over the gunwhale and tried to vomit, but without success. He noticed that his hands were pale green and dirty like turnips.

  “Napoleon says that Karl the engineer has got some tincture of cinchona,” whispered a voice in his ear. He pulled himself together with a start to see Kristian the Beachman’s bushy eyebrows and everlasting smile.

  “Be an angel and let me have that bottle,” he groaned. “I’m so ill, so ill.”

  “It’s one some passenger once left on board,” said Kristian as he returned with the bottle. “You’re welcome to it if you think it’ll do you any good. You don’t look at all well, Jens Ferdinand.”

  The bitter drink thrust its mordant roots throughout his body, and a sweetly-perfumed herb of innocent peace grew up within him. His ears were filled with a high-pitched joyful ringing.

  He emptied the little medicine bottle and threw it overboard.

  The cinchona did not keep him intoxicated for very long; the prolonged chimes died away and dissolved into a confused jangling and jingling, and then the bill was immediately placed before him in the form of headache and seasickness … he leant out over the gunwhale and brought up a little green bile.

  Alas, alas. It’s easy enough to take a heroic stance before trials for which you are not yourself responsible, but not when the suffering comes simply as the result of foolishness and weakness. And just as the blessings of intoxication are mere delusion, so, too, the curses of intoxication are fundamentally something of a joke, a cruel joke … it is a kind of caricature suffering, painful and distressing enough at the moment, but in a week’s time, when the thorn of immediate pain has been drawn, they will produce no more than an indulgent smile.

  But unfortunately, you can’t take this smile on account. You know this perfectly well, and that knowledge is itself part of the devilish torment of retribution. You are condemned to stand with the bitter taste of bile in your mouth and on the verge of insanity, and yet you know all the time that it’s only a passing phase. Frivolously and foolishly you have forfeited your real self … and now it’s wandering about lost and with a darkened mind, longing to be back where it belongs, and sooner or later it will find its way back, but before that …

  Then suddenly something put all the dispersed elements back in their proper places: a periscope! A tiny vertical line sticking out of the dark water, a walking stick taking a stroll all on its own out in the ocean, and leaving a tiny wake of wavelets behind it.

  Kristian and his son had also seen it and immediately reversed the engines.

  What else could they do? There was in any case no point in the little Kittiwake trying to make its escape from a U-boat. There was no mousehole here where the poor little creature could seek refuge. There was nothing for it but in all humility to hope that this big fierce cat was a kind cat, an understanding beast with a warm heart, which would only reluctantly stoop to murder. Kristian the Beachman had made the decision to stand and smile; his smile was that of someone at the photographer’s, slightly embarrassed at the hidden eye taking aim at him.

  The engineer had come up from the engine room. He carefully took a pair of clean horn-rimmed spectacles from a case and put them on over his oily face.

  Jens Ferdinand felt icy cold all over; he was aware of tension and tightness in every pore, as though he had been dipped in a solution of alum, but never in his life had he felt himself so collected, so much a single entity; his thoughts were clear and cool, like those of a general: it was unlikely that the U-boat would waste a valuable torpedo on an old tub like the Kittiwake. So in all probability it would soon show its conning tower on the surface and give the boat a single coup de grâce. And that would be that.

  Unless they made a counter-move. What do you do in a situation like this? How do you surrender? Suddenly he raised both his arms in the air and signalled to Kristian and the other two to do the same. The few German phrases he could remember suddenly obliged by making themselves available to him: “Freunde. Freunde. Nicht schiessen!” Presumably they have their monitors to hear them. Amazing how much German you can remember when you really need it. “Wir sind okkupiert! Sie willen uns befreien, Freunde! Heil Hitler!”

  These hypocritical intimations of submission, uttered in the brisk tone of a command, would surely have their effect. But of course, they would be rejected. Of course. No cowardly surrender here.

  A reckless flame had been lit within him. He cupped his hands and shouted at the very top of his voice: “Nur schiessen, Schweinhunde! Morder! Gaskammerschweine!”

  “And get a move on,” he added in his own language. “Get a bloody move on. Schnell. Schnell.”

  The periscope was no longer moving. Kristian and his son and the engineer stood staring at it. All three of them were completely petrified; even Kristian’s smile was almost extinguished, and Jens Ferdinand felt the paralysis spreading to him, too. He was no longer icily cold, but burning throughout his body; his blood was pounding in his temples and baying in his ears. So this is how it’s going to end, a voice said within him, but no thought arose as a result. There was only this pounding in his heart and his head. And then a vague regret at having exposed the bespectacled engineer and Kristian’s young albino to this. Never mind the rest of us. Especially never mind the baker!

  And then, gradually, the feeling of having a bullet in the midriff, the dull sense of having been shot … he recognised it from certain kindly dreams of revenge … there was no sense of pain … it was too extensive for that. It was too broad, the words began to grind around in his mind, too extensive, too extensive … like a fly being hit with a leather belt … extensive, extensive, extensive … !

  The four men on the ship stared hypnotically at the periscope. It moved. It rose a little from the water. But then it was lowered. It disappeared. Slowly. Deliberately. There was a low sucking sound under the water, and a hollow snap. The torpedo being fired?

  “Simon!” Kristian suddenly burst out, and like lightning he rushed forward and disappeared below deck. The albino pulled a face as though fighting an attack of sneezing; his mouth fell open, and for a moment he looked just like a baby about to start crying.

  But nothing happened. Nothing except that the periscope was no longer to be seen. Kristian returned with Simon, who was perfectly calm, indeed even yawning a little, heavy with sleep, screwing up his eyes good-naturedly in the light. Kristian shook his head gently, and his smile returned. His son’s face, too, adopted its customary form, expressionless and overgrown with light down and eyelashes. And the engineer took out his spectacle case again and carefully replaced his fine spectacles in it.

  And the engines started again. And light snow began to fall over the everyday grey water. So life had returned. Jens Ferdinand was still scarlet and sweating all over as though he had a temperature. But this warmth disappeared, too. And then came something reminiscent of disappointment.

  “You’re ridiculous; you always have been and always will be,” he confided to himself on the point of tears. “Whatever situation you’re in, you act the fool. Now, for the rest of your life, you’ll be pestered by the memory of this episode at sea when – presumably (and luckily for you) speaking to deaf ears – you renounced Hitler and put four innocent human lives at risk purely and simply to strike an attitude. Or no … Not even that. In actual fact, you had murder in your heart. You wanted to get rid of Simon the baker… ! There, now you’ve said it.”

  Simon rubbed his eyes and gently brushed his clothes down. Dressed in a brown smock and wearing
a dark blue Faroese cap, he looked every bit the honest and sensible farmer. He glanced around in an almost matter-of-fact manner, nodded to Jens Ferdinand in recognition and understanding, and went over and shook his hand. There was nothing unbalanced about him as he was now; he was a respectable and thoughtful man undertaking a journey. Moreover, he must be very tired after the excesses of yesterday and the preceding night when he was going around knocking on doors and proclaiming the Day of Judgement.

  “No, I felt in myself that the hour had not yet come,” said Kristian. “God’s numbers were not yet complete.”

  Simon made no reply, but was briefly lost in thought. A moment later he was up in the wheelhouse refreshing himself on a mug of coffee. As though he were a quite ordinary, nondescript person … a smallholder or fisherman summoned as a witness in a boundary dispute.

  Ahead of them a great violet bay opened out in the grey-red showery sky, and a strip of sunlit mountainside came into view. Simon thanked Kristian for the coffee, wiped his mouth and descended from the wheelhouse. He went across to Jens Ferdinand with an expression of kindly concern on his face.

  “Seasick? You should have a cup of black coffee, it would buck you up. Don’t you want one? All right. Seasickness is a nasty thing. But when all is said and done, it doesn’t last. Hm. Aye, we’re both travelling on the same errand, Jens Ferdinand. I wanted to be a bit of help. For Liva’s sake. She is such a splendid woman, you know. And she must be having a difficult time of it, all alone with what has happened. She was so very fond of him. But it’s a good thing there are two of us to comfort her. Or rather: five, for the other three here on board are coming with us, of course. How old was your brother? Only twenty-nine! And how old are you yourself, Jens Ferdinand? Twenty-five. Oh. I’m thirty-eight myself. I knew your father quite well, Martin from the River Cottage; he was a carpenter, such a good, quiet man. A sensible, honest man. He helped me to build my house. That was a long time ago, though. And a lot of things have changed since then.”